Anthea Kreston has been on road and rail with the Artemis Quartet, and it quickly becomes a blur.
It felt like the first real week of work together. The rehearsals are done, the house concerts as well. This is it. Packing of the suitcase, early mornings leaving for the plane before anyone wakes – not having a chance to say goodbye. Checking and always checking again all of the travel details – flight information, lists of things to bring.
The first concert was in the Netherlands – Eindhoven. We flew Berlin to Düsseldorf, then had a car service drive us the remaining 120km to Eindhoven. In the car we all had scores and pencils ready and had a talk-through rehearsal of our program. Balance, character clarification, intonation spots to re-work. We were left at the hotel, and had a chance to enjoy a walk in the city and a bite to eat before our dress rehearsal.
As I write this (it is midnight Thursday, and I have just returned to my VRBO in Amsterdam – Jason and the girls are asleep and I am too restless to go to sleep yet), I realize that details have already begun to blur for me. How is this possible? I am mixing up the halls in my mind. From now on I will try to take photos of the inside and out so I can more easily remember. There has been so much information of every kind entering my mind in the past month – from the smallest details to the largest ones – emotional, technical, personal – I just don’t know how another little bit of information can possibly squeeze itself into my brain. But – of course there is always a little extra room (like the miraculous space that appears when a piece of chocolate cake is presented to one of my daughters).
So – back to Eindhoven – perfect first venue for me to get my feet wet – medium sized hall and comfortable. Now I am looking up what we played. Janacek, Mozart, Grieg. Good. Pretty good. A little stiff maybe, but good. Encore of Wolf Italian Serenade. And flowers at the end. Beautiful, large bouquet. Sorry to leave them behind. I decided to put them in my suitcase and see if they can last until I get back home. Hmmmm.
All of the hotels have been really nice – and the breakfasts are amazing! I am used to the American-style included breakfasts – you know the kind I mean – the waffle maker, the small fridge with sugary yoghurts, the cereal bar, and some unsavory-looking eggs and meats. Not the case here, I tell you! Cheeses, smoked salmon, cappuccino, freshly baked breads, fruits and juices. Puts me in a good mood for half the day! Love it.
So – dress rehearsal at 6, concert at 8, back to hotel by 11, asleep by 12, then up and in a car service to Essen – about an hour and a half in which we start to put together programs for the 17-18 season and begin to organize our next recording sessions for Warner. We arrive in Essen and have just enough time for a quick turn-around at the hotel before Ecki and I have a joint radio interview about our first concert together in Germany. Then a dress rehearsal (Beethoven for this concert) – it is always a bit prickly to play a Beethoven for the first time – a fine balance of intonation, minutiae, big shapes and and incredibly specific emotional plan.
The hall in Essen was incredible! The sound was rich and inviting – just felt like heaven. The group is starting to feel more at home with one another on stage – the Beethoven was perhaps a bit rough around the edges, but I was transported by the slow movement. The sounds together began to be one sound – the flow of the music as one.
And – what fun! Volker came – the original Artemis violist and someone I have known for 20 years (lightly – but we always got along quickly and easily). He brought his absolutely adorable 11 year old son, who is a master photo-bomber. Volker looks just the same as 20 years ago at Juilliard, a handsome tall guy in a vintage tan motorcycle jacket, and sky blue eyes with a glimmer.
We took a train back to Berlin after the concert – first-class with a healthy amount of beer and wine, and we managed to get some Thai take-out before we boarded. We all went our separate ways and I got home around 1 am.
A day off (lots of things to do at home still) and a chance to see the girls and Jason before heading out for the next leg. Rotterdam, Bremen and now Amsterdam at the amazing Concertgebow. Mixed programs and always flowers at the end. Glorious flowers that I hate to leave behind. My flowers from Eindhoven actually made it back to Berlin intact – I have devised a way of nestling the bouquet in my suitcase.
Tonight was the Concertgebouw. This is the most imposing of the halls thus far, and the audience was packed. The beautiful rounded egg-shell hall with chandelier and engraved names of composers circling the ceiling. A living part of musical history. As I walked out, I was momentarily stunned, and it took me a little while to find my comfort zone. Maybe I never even found it tonight. The quartet, I believe, sounds marvellous – the comments have been great, there are standing ovations and encores. They say we fit together perfectly, and sound as if we have been paying together for years. I believe them, but I know I still have a long way to go before I truly can feel like an integrated and confident member of this quartet. I always forgive myself in advance for mistakes that I know will happen – I enjoy the struggle and the series of teeny successes and failures. But, I do often become absolutely taken away by what we are doing together – the trust, the beauty, the creativity and sweep. Tomorrow I will spend some good hours re-working my part before we rehearse and play our second concert at the Concertgebouw. And now – to bed! 1 am and a big day tomorrow.
Hugo Strasser, bandleader and jazz clarinettist, is no more. He was 93 and a national legend.
It appears that the chorus have agreed to move from full-time work to nine-month contracts. This would represent a significant gain for chief executive Cressida Pollock and a face-saving device for the singers and their union, Equity.
Expect Cressida to open similar negotiations with the orchestra.
Press release follows.
English National Opera reaches a settlement with Equity
English National Opera can confirm that a deal to change ENO chorus contracts has been reached with Equity.
The settlement will see the ENO Chorus move to a nine-month contract to reflect the length of future seasons at the London Coliseum. These contracts will run from August – April (inclusive). During the months of May – July, when the company performs outside of its home venue, ENO Chorus members will be offered work on a first refusal basis. The Chorus will reduce in number for 44 members to 40 from August 2016. The new chorus pay package will come into effect from 1 August 2017.
Cressida Pollock, Chief Executive of ENO, said, “I am delighted that we have been able to reach a deal with Equity. We recognise the fundamental importance of the ENO Chorus in delivering world-class opera. We listened to the concerns of the Chorus and have reached a fair compromise that preserves the permanent ensemble, focussing on our London Coliseum season, whilst ensuring that we have the building blocks in place to increase our outside work. This settlement will contribute to the wider changes in our business model, to ensure that ENO becomes a more financially resilient organisation, able to move forward on a reduced public subsidy.”
Harry Brunjes, Chairman of ENO, commented, “On behalf of the ENO Board I would like to thank Cressida and the ENO Chorus for their hard work in reaching this compromise. We are now looking forward to the future, and to working together to ensure that our great organisation thrives for decades to come.”
–ends–
Richard Morrison, the Times music critic, has been polemicising again for English National Opera to slim down or shut down. Some of his arguments may be valid, but today he draws a false account of subsidy inflation.
In 1952, he writes, (Sadlers Wells) staged no fewer than 26 different operas… I looked up the company’s Arts Council grant for 1952. It was £60,000 — the equivalent of between £1.8 million and £5.9 million now, depending on whether you do the calculation based on retail prices, incomes or property values.
Compare that with today. Next season ENO will get £12 million in subsidy, for which it will deliver just 11 or possibly 12 productions. In real terms that’s two or three times the subsidy it received in 1952 for fewer than half the number of shows.
Wrong, wrong and wrong again. Let me offer a parallel comparison.
In 1949, the London Symphony Orchestra obtained its first Arts Council subsidy. The amount was £2,000 per annum – equivalent to £60,000 or £190,000 in current values, depending on how you calculate them.
Today, the LSO receives over £2.5 million in funding from ACE and the City of London, well over 1,000 times its original subsidy and for playing no more UK concerts than it did in 1949.
Morrison is the LSO’s official historian. He ought to know these things.
He should also know that an opera orchestra and chorus costs far more than a freelance symphony orchestra. In 1949, when £2,000 covered the LSO’s bare patches, the Covent Garden orchestra cost £70,000.
Morrison founds his false argument on wrong numbers and rank amnesia.
There have been many wonderful tributes paid to Max this week and they amply testify, in all sorts of different ways, what he meant to the musical world and beyond. That so many people have expressed how much he influenced them – both personally and professionally – is quite extraordinary. No composer (and indeed most musicians) could escape the Max factor – whether you loved it or loathed it or indeed tried to be indifferent to it. His music, his ideas, his striving for originality or indeed his pontificating in the press about Muzak, musical education, swan eating or indeed any other agenda he set his mind to – Max seemed to be everywhere!
Max was never a close friend of mine, but we did meet up on numerous occasions either by accident – sometimes in the food section of M&S in Princes Street, Edinburgh where he used to stock up before returning to Orkney – or just by chance at concerts or other events as indeed happened about 18 months ago at the RAM, when we were both having a work done at a student concert. On that occasion we chatted about his newly finished 10th Symphony – a very long way from the first piece of his I ever encountered. But whatever the occasion, one always came away with something rather special. Whether it was those illuminating, penetrating eyes or his latest slant on a Chopin Ballade – no encounter with Max was ever boring or ordinary!
I first came across him in 1961 via The Musical Times magazine which at that time always used to include a piece of choral music as a so called ‘musical supplement’ – generally meant for amateur choirs . On this occasion is was a short choral work which Max had produced for his pupils at Cirencester Grammar School – I think it was part of ‘O Magnum Mysterium’.
Well, there was a plethora of letters from infuriated choral singers and conductors saying the music was virtually impossible and how dare The Musical Times print such stuff! Subsequently Max wrote back saying something like ‘I don’t know what all the fuss is about – my kids sang it in a few rehearsals!’ They did indeed – and subsequently recorded it on the Argo label.
My next real connection with Max was about 10 years later when he came to Glasgow with The Fires of London. He already had a reputation to shock and there were a lot of articles in the press about people walking out of the Proms premiere of ‘Worldes Blis’ in 1969. I remember the Glasgow occasion well and will never forget the way he leapt onto the platform to conduct the amazing ‘Vesalii Icones’ which included a dancer – William Louther – writhing about almost naked and making the Glaswegians blush. I thought at the time that Max and Simon Rattle shared the same hairdresser! He imbued all these performances with a tremendous physical presence – even if he was only sitting around at rehearsals. I got to know him a little more during the excellent series of Music Nova concerts in Glasgow organized by Alex Gibson (then Musical Director of RSNO) and Professor Fred Rimmer (Glasgow University) in the 1970s when Glasgow became besieged with visitors such as Ligeti, Berio, Lutoslawski and many others – almost a role call of contemporary composers.
Max was there, of course, and I remember in particular the premiere of a superb work – his ‘Stone Litany’ for soprano and orchestra. In 1980 I was also at the first performance in Edinburgh of, to my mind, one of his most inspired creations ‘The Lighthouse’ which went on to become one of his most frequently performed works. Our paths also crossed several times when he succeeded me as Associate Composer of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in 1982 – an extremely fruitful association which resulted in the creation of the remarkable 10 Strathclyde Concertos.
There have been numerous, detailed and wonderful obituaries this week listing his many achievements and his astonishing catalogue of over 300 works so it would be remiss of me to repeat all this in what is a brief tribute. But I would like to recall just one incident when we met up on a plane journey to London – I was teaching at the RAM and he was about to rehearse the RPO in Tchakovsky’s 1st Piano Concerto. He was a little bit distant and on the ensuing tube journey into London he confessed that he was somewhat nervous of the slow movement – and the rather tortuous, fast entry for the cellos at one place! I ventured to remind him that it was no more difficult than parts of ‘Eight Songs for a Mad King!’ Also during that conversation I mentioned that my composition pupils at the City of Edinburgh Music School were having a concert of their short works the following week and rather boldly asked if he’d like to come along! ‘We’ll see’ he replied. Sure enough just before the concert began Max appeared with some friends to the delight of all my budding and nervous composers! That he also came and chatted to them all at the end also says a lot about the man!
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies was one of the most prolific, individual and important composers of the past 60 years and, whether we admit it or not, none of us has escaped his influence. He was a shining comet in the musical sky – whilst we all looked up in amazement!
(c) John McLeod/Slipped Disc
The Deutsche Oper in west Berlin is planning a new Wagner Ring cycle, directed by the Norwegian, Stefan Herheim. It announced the plan last year.
So yesterday the Staatsoper in east Berlin announced a new Ring, directed by the Russian, Dmitri Tcherniakov.
Both are intriguing possibilities but how much Rhine gold can a city spend before it exhausts the public patience?
A culture of excess is replacing the tunnel vision of the Cold War era.
A trustee of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is so excited by the new music director, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, that he has given quarter of a million pounds to support her position.
The man’s name is John Osborn.
Mirga will be known henceforth as the Osborn Music Director.
We have received reports from Israel of the death of Richard Lesser principal clarinet of the Philharmonic from 1968 to his retirement in 2002.
A Curtis graduate with a Los Angeles background, Richard toured with European ensembles in the early 1960s until Zubin Mehta asked him to play in Israel. He joined the Philharmonic in 1966 and became principal two years later, as well as professor at Tel Aviv University.
Clio Gould, who broke the glass ceiling when she became leader of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 2002, led her final rehearsal today.
She told the players: ‘It has been an immense privilege to be here and work with you all. However, I feel it’s now time to hand the privilege over. I’ve had an absolutely amazing time here. This orchestra has such heart, soul, spirit and courage. I’ve loved working with you all so much – thank you all for these happy years.’
Clio also leads the London Sinfonietta and the Royal Academy Soloists.
